By the time Herb and I hit senior year we had effectively forgotten our promises to Bro. Fred to sin no more with respect to all things chemical. While walking in the woods one day we stumbled across an old lead pipe about a foot long and two inches in diameter. One look and we both knew that pipe was destined for BIG things. On the spot Herb and I decided it was time to make a real bomb. A pipe bomb like the ones used by spies and terrorists. Boy spies of Maryhurst Prep. How could we resist such a romantic image? No way, especially since a major part of our brains wasn’t functional.
In an old Encyclopedia Britannica upstairs in the Brothers’ Library (which was off-limits to most Postulants except for several voracious readers like me and that exception was only made because we read so much we had exhausted the student library downstairs) I found a fairly simple formula for black powder and copied it exactly. I carefully set aside sufficient quantities of carbon, sulfur, potassium nitrate (or saltpeter as we loved to call it), and aluminum powder in the Chem Lab. [Author’s Note: I can’t remember why we included the aluminum. Perhaps it was because I had read it was used as an ingredient in WWII incendiary bombs.]
At that time, as a big-shot senior, my housekeeping assignment was as the Morning Work Supervisor. As such I was responsible for all morning cleaning assignments and ensuring they were performed by my fellow postulants in a proper and timely manner. In that capacity I also had access to the famous Chem Lab key. Actually, Herb and I seldom had to use the key as we usually snuck into the Lab via one of the back windows he would unlock after his afternoon Physics class. It didn’t take us more than a day to assemble, measure, and mix the ingredients. Which we then hid in the Chemistry storage room because it was always locked and was cool and damp since the room was almost entirely underground, like an old-fashioned potato cellar.
Devising a reliable fuse was a challenge I solved by measuring how fast a strip of magnesium tape burned in the Lab. We then appropriated a foot long piece of the tape, hammered one end of the empty pipe until it was completely closed and beat the other end until only a narrow opening remained. Then we very carefully added small amounts of black powder, tamping it down slowly and super cautiously with a glass rod. [Author’s Note: We thought we were being very safety conscious. Later, Bro. Fred passed around the Chemistry class a clipping from a Chicago newspaper that related how two 16-year-old boys were killed doing precisely the same idiotic stunt. The big difference was they had used a metal rod to tamp the powder. Although we weren’t quite that stupid it was a very, very close call.] We inserted the magnesium tape and then crimped the end shut with a huge industrial-looking vise we found in the repair shop in the basement furnace-mechanical room.
That next Friday, in the dark of the night, we used a shovel purloined from the farm shed to bury the pipe in a shallow hole in the middle of an abandoned dirt lane near the edge of Maryhurst property about fifty yards from South Kirkwood Road, leaving only the tip of the fuse exposed. The next day, Saturday, we waited until the time was right and the two of us went our separate ways, only to meet at the bomb site a few minutes later. Herb lit a cigarette he had purloined from a pack Bro. Leo Slay (our cook and a great one at that) had dropped while playing a ping-pong game and I inserted it into the closed end of a book of matches. When the cigarette burned down the red-hot ember would light the matches, which in turn would flame across the matchbook, igniting the magnesium fuse attached to the other end. Or so it worked in the Lab when we tested it. We also knew from two different tests that it would take the cigarette at least 25 minutes to burn down into the match book and the tape would burn for another minute.
After burying the pipe, but leaving the tip and fuse exposed, we scurried off in different directions, ultimately heading for the basketball court from which we could monitor the dirt road from a distance. And hopefully warn away anyone walking along it. Actually, no one ever used that lane since it was blocked off at Kirkwood Road
Naturally, as soon as we arrived at the court we were drawn into a hot basketball game with several boys that Fr. Dorsey, the Chaplin, was casually refereeing from the sidelines. Need I say that we totally forgot the bomb in the heat of the game. And I mean truly forgot it and also forgot to watch the dirt lane for innocent pedestrians. Approximately 30 minutes later a terrific explosion rent the air. Everyone in the vicinity of the basketball court dropped to the ground, including Herb and I. Dust and small hunks of dirt and gravel showered around us. A large black cloud immediately mushroomed over the pine trees, drawing everyone’s attention.
Seconds later an excited crowd of boys and Brothers ran to see what had happened. Fr. Dorsey, hampered by his flowing cassock, wasn’t as fast as the rest of us and kept yelling for us to be careful.
“Slow down,” he called. “Don’t touch anything until I get there.”
When we reached the dirt track all we did was stand around and gape at the hole in the ground. It was at least two-three feet deep and about six feet wide. It had effectively wiped out the old road. Herb and I were astounded. We wanted to jump up and down and congratulate each other but we couldn’t make a move.
Bro. Xav arrived a few minutes later and we instantly came under the heaviest suspicion imaginable. But, of all things, Fr. Dorsey provided us with a fabulously unbreakable alibi. He and about eight of our fellow Postulants told Bro. Xav that Herb and I had been playing basketball with them for almost an hour before the explosion, from the beginning of the rec period. We couldn’t possibly be involved. With wide-eyed innocence Herb and I instantly confirmed that assessment and Bro. Xav had no choice but to accept it. Naturally, he didn’t believe one word. Not for a minute.
Two days later, and about a month earlier than normal, the new morning work assignments were posted by Bro. Xav. I was demoted from my previous job as Morning Work Supervisor (the top-dog slot and the choicest plum imaginable) to lowly cleaner of the main first floor toilet. With six urinals, two huge hand-washing troughs with four spigots each and six crappers. Groan. It was such a big assignment two boys were always assigned to clean it every morning. Not this time. That bad boy was mine and mine alone. Without doubt it was a tough job to finish and not be late for 8:00 class. Especially with all those brass fittings that had to sparkle like new. But I did it. Every morning for the rest of the year.
Even today the housework I do seems pretty easy compared to cleaning that damned toilet. My wife, Sandy
Later Herb and I talked about our total stupidity and irresponsibility in making the pipe bomb. Yeah, too little too late. Even as idiot teenagers we, belatedly of course, recognized how that stunt could have badly injured or killed innocent passersby, almost certainly someone we knew. Even though the old track where we planted the bomb was never used and was blocked off at both ends with piles of rubble, who’s to say that on that particular day someone wouldn’t have happened to stroll along the path to see where it led or watch the birds or whatever. And walk straight into the explosion. I had a few sleepless nights and a bad case of the guilts and I’m certain Herb did as well.
Today, as an adult, I marvel at the sheer idiocy of that senseless act and am tremendously thankful no one was injured. It could have been a terrible disaster that changed who knows how many lives. We got off extraordinarily lightly.
No comments:
Post a Comment